UAW Region 1C regional director Norwood Jewell is in line to become one of the union's new vice presidents. / Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press Business Writers

Norwood Jewell, who is in line to become one of the UAW’s new vice presidents, was one of the key figures in the union’s 1998 strike against General Motors.

At the time, Jewell was shop chairman of UAW Local 659 in Flint. The strike, which cost GM about $3 billion in after-tax losses, lasted nearly eight weeks and caused GM to temporarily close 25 of its plants.

Jewell is one of three nominees to become a vice president of the UAW at the union’s convention in June along with Cindy Estrada and Jimmy Settles. If elected, it would be up to the next UAW president to assign each vice president to a set of duties for a four-year term.

But with Jewell’s long history at GM, an assignment to lead negotiations with the automaker seems likely.

Jewell, 56, is currently the director of the UAW’s south-central Michigan region.

In December, Jewell was among the UAW officials who spoke at GM’s Flint Assembly plant, where the automaker produces heavy duty trucks, and answered some questions from reporters. The questions and his responses have been edited for clarity and brevity:

QUESTION: Are you guys looking to raise dues for UAW members?

ANSWER: We had those discussions and that’s all it is. ... Those are things that we talk about to our membership and we take it to conventions — and if we do anything there will be a vote. It’s nothing that we do on our own.

Q:Do you feel any pressure from the membership to try to modify the two-tier wage scale or push that up?

A: It’s not feeling pressure to do it. The international executive board hates two-tiers. We didn’t do two tiers because it’s a wonderful thing to do. We hate them. We intend to eliminate them over time but part of that is the South, the unorganized locations. If we don’t organize them and bring them up to our standard, we’re never going to be able to totally eliminate the second tier.

Q: There were lots of comments today that seemed almost directed at Gov. (Rick) Snyder. They were saying this is a guy who is taking away our ability to bargain.

A: He said he changed his mind about right-to-work because people should have the right to choose whether they belong to a labor organization or not. By federal law, they already had that right.

Q: In the next round of contract talks do you think, given the profitability of the automakers, that you guys will be able to get some of the money back that you gave up the last time around?

A: Negotiations do revolve around the economy. But I don’t have that crystal ball to tell you the economy is going to keep growing and hopefully it does because there’s way too many people hurting.

Q: What do you think of Mary Barra?

A: Don’t know her. … But he (Mark Reuss, president of GM North America) had a lot of good things to say about her, so I’ll take his word for it and hope things keep going forward because they’ve done an awesome job.

Q: GM and some of its leaders have done quite a bit to build a better relationship with the UAW. Dan Akerson, Steve Girsky — do you see that continuing?

A: Absolutely. Everywhere I ever go I tell people, look, we’re in a boat. If half the boat sinks, where’s the other half go? Unions aren’t about hurting companies, they’re about working with companies.